The ESA Foundation today announced the establishment of a program which will grant $45,000 in scholarships to students pursuing careers in game development.

The program outlines 15 scholarships of $3,000 each for women and minority students who are enrolled full-time at accredited four-year academic institutions. The scholarships will be available for use towards fields supporting game development including compuster science, animation, graphic design, software engineering and others.

"Positions in our industry are high-paying jobs with a remarkable potential to inspire and entertain millions of Americans," said ESA president and CEO Michael Gallagher. "We offer this program to help create our industry's next generation who will boost the industry's creative capital with new and unique approaches," Gallagher added.

The deadline for applications for the ESA Foundation's 2008-09 scholarship is May 15, and interested students can apply online.

In the pursuit of higher education, Florida's Ringling College of Art and Design has licensed Crytek's CryENGINE 2 middleware. The initial participant in Crytek's educational licensing program, Ringling is the first academic institution to implement CryENGINE 2 into its curriculum.

"We are thrilled Crytek has chosen Ringling College as its inaugural partner for educational licensing," said Ringling president Dr. Larry Thompson. "We view this CryENGINE 2 agreement as a validation of the exceptional and innovative academic program we have created here and feel privileged to have Crytek as one of our newest business partners."

"The ranks of the Ringling alumni reads like a who's who of the computer graphics world, as do the companies they work for," noted Crytek director Faruk Yerli. "Our own director of animation is an alumnus, which shows you how highly we regard their graduates."

"Now that Ringling will be training their students using our engine ... Read more

Raven's Kenn Hoekstra updated his .plan and besides a mention of thanks about Photoshop6 suggestions, the Blizzard/id anniversaries (and his own at Raven), most of the update is about the story of a Degree in Gaming Design offering his own experiences on skill versus experience.